'Lakelands' is rich with angst and stark performances

Cian (Éanna Hardwicke) and his friend (Dafhyd Flynn) are on a night out following GAA football practice. Following an altercation at a nightclub, Cian is attacked and is eventually removed from the panel as a result of an injury he sustained during the attack. Unmoored from the sport that gave his life meaning and drifting into drink and drug use, he reconnects with old flame Grace (Danielle Galligan), and tries to find a way back...

Stories about sports injuries, and how people try to recover from them, very often turn the thing into a sport itself. It becomes about a journey to recover, meeting hardship, and trying to find a way to pride again through defeating whatever injury or adversity has come by them. 'Lakelands', however, deals with something that's much more prevalent but is rarely talked about. The idea of how much of an identity and a community grows out of it, and how it's lost.

Robert Higgins and Patrick McGivney, in writing and directing 'Lakelands', grapple with ideas and themes that are undoubtedly close to the bone for them. There are far too many moments and scenes in 'Lakelands' that feel lived-in and genuine for them to be conjured out of imagination. Chances are you probably know someone who's gone through something like this, who made GAA the core of their being, and how it eventually left them only to return in another fashion.

Éanna Hardwicke spends much of 'Lakelands' working out his complex array of anguish and angst behind the eyes, deflecting any kind of inquiry with either a joke or a shrug. Yet, we're able to see into it and past it, and recognise how terrifying it all must be for him. There's a sensitivity to how Higgins and McGivney write and direct it, that it doesn't try to turn it into some sort of shallow contest with adversity. Hardwicke's instincts in certain scenes seem too sharp for something like that as well. Likewise, bringing in Danielle Gilligan's performance, again, there's a kind of close-up examination of grief in all of its forms, and how it changes and impacts people far beyond what they present to the world.

The supporting cast all give added attention to this. Lorcan Crantich plays Hardwicke's on-screen father with the kind of gruff attention from a rural oul lad, while Gary Lydon's football coach has that kind of hardened compassion. Yet, for all of these rich performances, there's something like a sparseness in 'Lakelands' that's sometimes too much. As much as there's a kind of taciturn quality about it that's undoubtedly genuine, 'Lakelands' sometimes leaves too much unsaid. Still, there are some strong performances here and it's a unique examination of masculinity, sports, and family drama.